I am a professor and endowed professor at the University of Houston where I founded and direct the Sasakawa International Center for Space Architecture and head the graduate program in space architecture. My background deals extensively with research, planning and design of habitats, structures and other support systems for applications in space and extreme environments on Earth. I have recently written a new book titled "Climate of Corruption: Politics and Power Behind the Global Warming Hoax". It can be previewed and ordered at www.climateofcorruption.com. Additional information about my book and views can be found on my YouTube address: http://www.youtube.com/climateofcorruption.

NASA's Inconvenient Ruse: The Goddard Institute For Space Studies

The next time you read that NASA declares this or that day, month or year the hottest since yadda, yadda, yadda — you might want to check the source. It’s a pretty safe bet that it came from the Goddard Institute for Space Studies and probably quotes its director, James Hansen.

One would imagine that if you can trust any organization regarding reliable climate information, it would be NASA, right? Particularly a NASA organization named after Dr. Robert H. Goddard, widely recognized as the “father of American rocketry.” Think how important it is to get weather information right when launching people into space, and consider all those satellites and other high-tech stuff they have at their disposal. One would certainly believe that they could be relied on to give us the real scoop. Unfortunately, one might be very wrong, at least regarding the Goddard Institute for Space Studies.

First of all, GISS is actually only a climate modeling shop that relies on surface (not satellite) data that is mostly supplied by others. And even some top NASA scientists consider the dataset produced by GISS inferior to data provided by two other principal organizations, the National Climate Data Center’s Global Historical Climatology Network and the University of East Anglia’s Climate Research Unit (CRU) — home of the “ClimateGate” scandal.

As reported in a NASA memo to USA Today’s weather editorfrom Reto Ruedy at GISS: “My recommendation to you is to continue using NCRDC [NOAA] data for U.S. mean [temperatures] and Phil Jones’ [CRU] data for the global mean…We are basically a modeling group…for that purpose what we do is more than accurate enough [to assess model results]. But we have no intention to compete with either of the other two organizations in what they do best.” He clarified this point, saying, “…the National Climate Center’s procedure of only using the best stations is more accurate.”

And just how good is that CRU data? One ClimateGate log posted by database programmer Ian “Harry” Harris doesn’t provide much public confidence, reporting: “[The] hopeless state of their [CRU] database. No uniform data integrity. It’s just a catalogue of issues that continues to grow as they’re found…There are hundreds if not thousands of pairs of dummy stations…and duplicates…Aarrggghh! There truly is no end in sight. This project is such a MESS. No wonder I needed therapy!!”

In a ClimateGate e-mail, CRU Director Phil Jones has acknowledged that CRU mirrors U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) data. “Almost all the data we have in the CRU archive is exactly the same as in the Global Historical Climatology Network (GHCN) archive used by the NOAA National Climate Data Center,” the e-mail said. And as noted by meteorologist Joseph D’Aleo in a January 28, 2011 Energy Tribune article, NASA GISS also uses NOAA data, applying its own adjustments. While all three databases suffer from the same flaws, NASA “tuning” tends to show the warmest trend anomalies, with CRU’s generally the lowest, according to D’Aleo. Such differences result from various assumptions regarding unknowns such as changing urbanization and other land use influences that contaminate surface temperature recordings.

Dr. Ruedy of GISS confessed in an email that “[the United States Historical Climate Network] data are not routinely kept up-to-date, and in another that NASA had inflated its temperature data since 2000 on a questionable basis. “NASA’s assumption that the adjustments made the older data consistent with future data…may not have been correct”, he said. “Indeed, in 490 of the 1,057 stations the USHCN data was up to 1 C degree colder than the corresponding GHCN data, in 77 stations the data was the same, and in the remaining 490 stations the USHCN data was warmer than the GHCN data.”

Anthony Watts, a meteorologist who has conducted extensive surveys of NOAA temperature recording posts, told FoxNews.com in February 2010 that “…90 % of them [surface stations] don’t meet the [government's] old, simple rule called the ’100-foot rule for keeping thermometers 100 feet or more from biasing influence… and we’ve got documentation”.

NOAA and NASA have both received legal Freedom of Information Act requests for unadjusted data and documentation of all adjustments they have made in order to assess the reliability of their reports in keeping with a Data Quality Act requiring that any published data must be able to be replicated by independent audits. And both have resisted these requests despite promises of transparency and the fact that together they receive nearly a billion dollars in direct annual government climate research funding. They are to also receive up to $600 million more from the Recovery Act of 2009.

Christopher Horner, a senior fellow at the Competitive Enterprise Institute has sought NASA GISS records through the FOIA for three years, including documents related to human-caused global climate crisis theory promotions undertaken by federal employees such as those of Gavin Schmidt, a principal blogger with the aggressively global warming activist RealClimate.org website. Filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia in August of 2007 and January of 2008, the CEI vs. NASA suit specifically seeks documents related to temperature records that NASA was forced to correct in response to criticism from a leading climate watchdog and RealClimate.org nemesis Steve McIntyre. NASA released some documents, arguing that those associated with RealClimate.org were “agency records”, and then ceased to comply after admitting that 3,500 RealClimate.org-related emails had been found on Schmidt’s computer.

The American Tradition Institute’s Environmental Law Center also filed a FOIA lawsuit in the federal district court in the U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C. on June 21, 2011 to force NASA to release records that pertain to James Hansen’s outside income-producing activities which have brought him at least $1.2 million in the past four years alone. ATI is seeking documents revealing possible noncompliance with applicable federal ethics and disclosure regulations, and with NASA Rules of Behavior. Hansen’s high profile global warming alarmism and related energy policy statements fall far outside his official Civil Service job role.

Hansen first gained worldwide attention in 1988 following testimony before then-Senator Al Gore’s Committee on Science, Technology and Space when he stated with 99 % certainty that temperatures had in fact increased, and that there had been some greenhouse warming, although he then made no direct connection between the two. This observation was consistent with concerns about a particularly warm summer that year in some U.S. regions.

Over time Hansen’s pronouncements became ever more dramatic. In a Dec. 6, 2005 presentation to the American Geophysical Union he stated that the Earth’s climate was already reaching a tipping point that will result in the loss of Arctic ice as we know it, with sea levels rising as much as 80 feet during this century (40 times higher than even the upper end of the most recent alarmist U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change summary report has projected), thus flooding coastal areas. He warned that this could be halted only if greenhouse gas emissions were reduced within the next 25 years.

In a Jan. 29, 2006, New York Times interview Hansen charged that NASA public relations people had pressured him to allow them to review future public lectures, papers and postings on the GISS website. Yet in January 15, 2009 testimony before the U.S. Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works-Minority Committee, his former boss John S. Theon, retired chief of NASA’s Climate Processes Research Program, took issue with the interference charge, stating: “Hansen was never muzzled even though he violated official agency position on climate forecasting (i.e., we did not know enough to forecast climate change or mankind’s effect on it). Hansen has embarrassed NASA by coming out with his claim of global warming in 1988 in his testimony before Congress.”

Dr. Theon also testified that: “My own belief concerning anthropogenic [man-made] climate change is that models do not realistically simulate the climate system because there are many very important sub-grid scale processes that the models either replicate poorly or completely omit”. He observed: “Furthermore, some scientists have manipulated the observed data to justify their model results. In doing so, they neither explain what they have modeled in the observations, nor explain how they did it…this is contrary to the way science should be done.” He then went on to say “Thus, there is no rational justification for using climate model forecasts to determine public policy”.

Many members of the newly reconstituted U.S. Congress who are determined to cut non-essential government spending are very likely to agree. Perhaps this circumstance will substantially chill the overheated atmosphere surrounding NASA GISS operations.

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Larry Bell writes here what has been commonplace, an attack not on the science, which is based on fairly basic physics (global warming) and chemistry (ocean acidification, but “issues” that can be distorted and fabricated, such as, attack on the outspoken scientist, Dr. Jmaes Hansen, and the data gathering and method, computer models. Sorry, Mr Bell, but I am wary when you use “FOX News” as a source, and we all know their reputation for this issue. As far as Dr. Jams Hansen, I only have to refer to Mark Bowen’s book, “Censoring Science; The Political Attack on Dr. James Hansen and the Truth of Global Warming” that has a detail account of the “muzzled” attempts. I question Forbes motives for even allowing this tabloid article to be posted on their website. Perhaps it is to please their clients in the Oil and Coal Industry? Perhaps, we also should look at the real source of your “income” also, Mr. Bell.

the only ‘Ruse’ I can see is the misinformation and ignorance you portray here.

Dr. Hansen- is an eminent scientist of the highest ethical standards.

His use of Paleo climates of the past (not computer models) is now becoming a standard used by other climate scientists.

His projections and those of the IPCC have been dead on accurate. The arctic ice melt we are now seeing, by late summer could equal or even surpass 2007- 40 years ahead of the the IPCC predictions.

It seems there is a huge disconnect here- we listen to corporations and CEO’s and the right wing media (Forbes is included here) in their smearing of the truth about global warming- or we listen to the science, and the climate scientists.

From my knowledge of paleo climates and C02 levels, ice melt in the arctic, the rising number of extreme weather events, climate instability- I would easily place my bet on the scientists- instead of you or Forbes- who are nothing but mouthpieces of ignorance and hypocrisy.

The published GISS data quite clearly shows adjustments made to many of the land air temperatures. The pattern of additions do not show, as far as I can see, show valid adjustments such as for Urban Heat Island effects. They consist largely of “staircases” of increments of 0.1 degree (i)going up at a degree or so per century for 100y, (ii) going up at several degrees per century, but only for a couple of decades, usually the last two (iii) occasionally downward staircases. Nearly all the adjustments make earlier temperatures colder, leaving later ones unaffected. The adjustments are barely perceptible on individual stations, but show up vividly when retrieved by simply taking the difference between the actual and homogenized data for single stations. Averaging world-wide merely smears the staircase “treads and risers” into an upward curve which mimics catastrophic global warming.

The overall effect is to make it appear that, regardless of what temperatures are actually doing (and some go down), the homogenized data shows an *additional* warming of about one degree spread over one hundred years, and an addition increase in the rate of warming in the last two decades of around two degrees per century.

The adjustment was exposed to more general view in 2008-9 and prompts the obvious question of why it is being done, with an opportunity to explain if it is justified after all.

The figures are so small that only instruments record them; human senses and fallible memory would not show warming or cooling. The obvious serious problem is that if the faulty data is fed into climate models in order to fine-tune them, it is possible that the programmers will find themselves mis-adjusting some parameter or inventing completely imaginary mechanisms to account for supposed warming that is in fact non-existent. If this mechanism includes the hypothesis that carbon dioxide is significantly affecting temperatures, there could be pressure to roll out economically suicidal energy policies.

My read of Dr. Bell’s article indicates that he feels that the “ethical bind” noted in Dr. Curry post today entitled- “Stephen Schneider and the “Double Ethical Bind” of Climate Change Communication” has been played out with too little focus on the uncertainties inherent in the models used to predict climate (and the factors that cause it to change). http://judithcurry.com/2011/07/21/stephen-schneider-and-the-%e2%80%9cdouble-ethical-bind%e2%80%9d-of-climate-change-communication/

My state, California, is moving forward under the premise that yes mankind is affecting the climate, primarily though our use of fossil fuels, and we have instituted regulations to reduce our CO2 levels. How we can do this, hopefully in a cost effective manner, was recently discussed at a July 6. 2011 Workshop on the California Clean Energy Future- http://www.energy.ca.gov/2011_energypolicy/documents/#07062011 Being a former process guy I found Michael Theroux’s comments to the California Energy Commission enlightening as it laid out “a conceptual framework for assessment, initiating a more realistic and flexible implementation and better over-all monitoring of all aspects of that pursuit” http://www.terutalk.com/TERU-Reports/

I hate to inform you that because science advances, Dr. Theon’s testimony regarding climate models is inaccurate. Here’s the article out of the peer reviewed Journalk of Climate. Wang, L., Y. Wang, A. Lauer, and S.-P. Xie: Simulation of seasonal variation of marine boundary layer clouds over the eastern Pacific with a regional climate model. J. Climate,

The upshot is that this model correctly follows past climate history and that the model shows that due to the thinning of cloud layers and the resulting decrease in reflecting solar energy, the temperature increase due to carbon dioxide emissions expected for the end of the century will be at the upper end of the range -about 4.5 degrees centigrade. Science marches on. BTW, I hear they are booking Northwest Passage cruises.

Money quotes from Wang, Wang, et al.: “Co-author Kevin Hamilton concludes, “If our model results prove to be representative of the real global climate…” and ““All the global climate models we analyzed have serious deficiencies in simulating the properties of clouds in present-day climate. It is unfortunate that the global models’ greatest weakness may be in the one aspect that is most critical for predicting the magnitude of global warming.”

Read: More modeling hackery on display. Come back and see us when you have empirical data that substantiates the model. The model that uses 25 years of observations to predict 90 years into the future. Limited geographic area, no factoring in of trade winds or periodic variations in ocean currents into the model – the list goes on and on.

No it is true science rather than the hackery of naysaying and of course the global warming denier movement that relies on misrepresenting science as a rule. BTW it says nothing about denying Global warming. They already know it is happening, both by the physical manifestations such as warming ocean temperatures, increased water vapor content in the atmosphere, the massive decline in glacial ice to name a few major indicators. What they are trying to get a handle on is how much warming there will be, what are the temperature boundaries that we can predict with some degree of confidence. BTW J. Climate is a peer reviewed Journal. Since you made the purchase to read it then you can look at the submissions instructions. It will be interesting to see YOUR letter detailing the objections you raised. I look forward to “Dr. jimbo” and his commentary.

You post has added nothing. It is just naysaying talkfest material. Would be nice if there was a modicum of intellectual content.

True there are omissions in the Wang model. Common practice as you try to start with basics and slowly add complexity as you develop better understanding. Model failures often lead to more knowledge and more improved modeling. Theon paints with a very broad and incomplete brush. What has not been said is this. Climate models have accurately predicted the very things that we have observed empirically. Example is sea level height where the Levels match the UPPER limit of the IPCC (www.copenhagendiagnosis.com/) projection. The IPCC average projection was more conservative. Note that models are built to estimate trends rather than events. ALso note that current models fall apart when you take CO2 effects out of the equation and are more accurate when CO2 warming is added back in. You see there are ways of testing model validity. Run them for a long time and the accuracy (or inaccuracy) becomes more apparent. Recent example is the data fed from the Mt Pinatubo eruption accurately predicted the ensuing effects on weather. Models have also predicted correctly warming in the Arctic and over land, greater warming at night, and stratospheric cooling. Theon’s complaints don’t stand up to the science. Also note that Theon did not have the huevos to bring this up in a peer reviewed paper, where he would have to defend his position with real solid facts. So while you might want to agree with hi suppositions, they are only that, suppositions. That’s how science without ideology works.

The quotation in this article attributed to Dr. Phil Jones referring to an interview with BBC confessing that CRU ”…surface temperature data are in such disarray they probably cannot be verified or replicated” , as also reported in numerous other publications, appears to be inaccurate, and in any case, is not a direct quotation.

The general reference origin links to a February 13, 2010 BBC News Q&A with Dr. Jones hosted by Roger Harrabin which, among other questions, asked: “Do you agree that according to the global temperature record used by the IPCC, the rates of global warming from 1860-1880, 1910-1940 and 1975-1998 were identical?

Dr. Jones response which appears to have given rise to this broadly cited but incorrect quotation follows:

“An initial point to make is that the responses to these questions I’ve assumed that when you talk about the global temperature record, you mean the record that combines estimates from land regions with those from marine regions of the world. CRU produces the land component, with the Met Office Hadley Center producing the marine component.

Temperature data from the period 1869-1880 are more uncertain, because of sparser coverage, than for later periods of the 20th Century. The 1860-1880 period is also only 21 years in length. As for the two periods 1910-40 and 1975-1998 the warming trends are not statistically significant”.

My sincere apologies are extended to Dr. Jones for citing and perpetuating this broadly reported but inaccurate statement attribution.

Contrary to your assertions, climate modeling has been woefully inadequate in accurately predicting climate trends in the real world. Most spectacularly in their inability to predict/explain the lack of warming since 1998. Even the examples you cite are problematic:

From Copenhagen 2009: “Sea level has risen faster than expected (Rahmstorf et al. 2007), see Figure 16. The average rate of rise for 1993-2008 as measured from satellite is 3.4 millimeters per year (Cazenaveet al. 2008), while the IPCC Third Assessment Report (TAR) projected a best estimate of 1.9 millimeters per year for the same period. Actual rise has thus been 80% faster than projected by models. (Note that the more recent models of the 2007 IPCC report still project essentially the same sea level rise as those of the TAR, to within 10%.) Future sea level rise is highly uncertain, as the mismatch between observed and modeled sea level already suggests.”

Copenhagen uses Rahmstorf 2007 as evidence, who’s methodology and mathematics have subsequently been called into question as has have the conclusions of Rahmtorf’s follow-up paper in 2009: http://climatesanity.wordpress.com/2011/04/20/a-look-back-at-a-semi-empirical-approach-to-sea-level-rise/

The models and satellite data also don’t correlate to on-the-ground observations: http://www.jcronline.org/doi/full/10.2112/JCOASTRES-D-10-00141.1

You stated: “Recent example is the data fed from the Mt Pinatubo eruption accurately predicted the ensuing effects on weather.” That depends on how you define “accurately” because the sentiment in the deconstruction below is that the Pinatubo model was worthless: “the [Pinatubo] model predicted twice the actual total cooling, and predicted it would take fifty percent longer to recovery than actually happened.” http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/12/29/prediction-is-hard-especially-of-the-future/ As for Theon’s comments, I’m not sure where you get the notion that they “don’t stand up to science” when the scientific community at large was able to see what Mann and Briffa perpetrated with MBH98, as a starting point. The point of Theon’s comments was just as quoted: “My own belief concerning anthropogenic [man-made] climate change is that models do not realistically simulate the climate system because there are many very important sub-grid scale processes that the models either replicate poorly or completely omit…Thus, there is no rational justification for using climate model forecasts to determine public policy”.

Thank you for the silver platter. Yes the Mt. Pinatubo predictions were off by half in actual cooling and the timeline was twice as long.

Think about that. The modelling of one of the most complex systems ever attempted and it is accurate in the direction and off by only a half of the total delta or temperature change. That is far from inaccuracy. Off by an order of magnitude(10 times )? now that’s inaccuracy. By half or a factor of 2 is well in the ballpark. As you note yourself, the cooling did happen. Just took twice as long. Slight discrepancies like that will bring about more changes to increase pretty impressive accuracy.

To the layperson. Think times 2 when a portion of your family budget is calculated. Let’s say your grocery bill. Over a year you can still get a usable trend of a cost that my be averaging 300 dollars a month but may be 150 bucks or 600 bucks. You can still make out a direction and have a good clue to where the costs are heading.

Which means of course that other predictions based on that model may well be near enough the mark to base governmental decisions on. Maybe the time frames are going to be off and the range of temperatures will have somewhat larger boundaries of uncertainty, but the direction of the trends from the model is not so uncertain anymore. As time marches on the models will gain accuracy.

Of course will those financial resources be there should the GOP goes through with its plan to defund some global warming research?

I stand by my statement regarding Dr. Theon. There are plenty of forums for him to face peer review for any of his statements, including the one you quote. Your lame attempt to attach the affair “Mann and Briffa ” and conflate it with all climate research is a typical rhetorical ploy , similar to a western movie stagecoach driver hurling his empty gun at pursuing Indians. BTW, M&B too faced critical challenges to their views in peer reviewed journals. I know. I read them. So should Dr. Theon’s views be similarly vetted.

It is absolutely farcical that you believe that a model off by that much is “impressive accuracy” and that they are “near enough the mark to base government decisions on.” Yet, it appears that you are willing to implement economic policies to the tune of billions, possibly trillions, of dollars based on models that have proven incapable of predicting future climate. As Mann and Briffa were principal contributors and reviewers of the IPCC reports – upon which governments world wide were basing their decisions to dramatically alter their economic policies – the scientific fraud regarding MBH98 is more than relevant. The fact that their work was “peer-reviewed” merely further undermines the credibility of the peer-review process within “climate science”.

The fact that you are suggesting that Theon have these observations and opinions “peer-reviewed” indicates you are ignorant of what peer-review actually means.

I have wasted enough time on discussing an issue that you are clearly willfully ignorant of. Good luck to you.

I was hoping for some actual thought from someone who cuts and pastes from a climate denier website (without attribution BTW) but your lack of understanding of climate, climate modelling, and science is painfully obvious. You are just parroting the company line. Having worked on a peer reviewed paper on climate more than 30 years ago, I actually do understand what peer review is. Another thing is this: limiting CO2 growth can be done without negatively affecting the economy, unless your portfolio is 100% fossil fuel, and with benefits of our not having to send so much to OPEC and other foreign fuel suppliers. We win by having more efficient energy usage and a more diverse supply of power, and we sin by having fewer dollars going over to OPEC. Where is the downside? Even the Silicon Valley Manufacturers Group acknowledges the major economic savings of an energy conservation policy.